Abstract: This presentation focuses on creating  systemic shifts in fashion and enterprise education by shifting curriculum  and peadagodical structure positionality within the context of teaching and assessment. It specifically focuses on the concept of Kaitiakitanga, a root concept from the Mātauranga Māori framework (Kelsey, 2021). 

It also explores how learner output is impacted and transformed when the student’s learning journey is propelled by their purpose in life as “kaitiaki”, guardians of the earth. We present two case studies - a previous study involving tertiary students and an ongoing study of high school (Grade 11-12) business enterprise students who design, conceptualise, create and market products and services from their own indigenous perspectives rooted within an earth logic mindset as Kaitiaki. This case also highlights the learnings and challenges in this social design provocation where students actively work on dismantling traditional enterprise through embracing their own knowledge systems and ways of being, whilst having to embrace the limitations of the colonised framework, bringing attention to another provocation by Lesibe( 2022) Can the coloniser be the change maker?

 

The practice led research shows  that when students learn from the positionality of kaitiakitanga (Guardianship/Stewardship: a deep connection to all things are invoked), they naturally develop a sense of manaakitanga (sense of community, caring, and reciprocity) and whanaungatanga (deep empathy and connection to society and community) through the lens of their own worldviews. With this understanding of kaitiakitanga, manaakitanga and whanaungatanga, natural shifts occur in the mindset of learners as they gain a sense of long-term ancestral thinking